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The remains of two foetuses found in the tomb of ancient Egypt's boy king Tutankhamen may have been twins and were very likely his children, says a UK expert.

Professor Robert Connolly, who first studied the king's mummified remains in the 1960s and is currently working with the Egyptian authorities to analyse them, says new research suggests the two foetuses were likely twins and fathered by the king.

He says the findings, which he was due to present to a conference at the University of Manchester, offered a "very exciting" insight into the life of the legendary pharaoh, who died around 3300 years ago at the age of 19.

"The two foetuses in the tomb of Tutankhamen could be twins despite their very different size and thus fit better as a single pregnancy for his young wife. This increases the likelihood of them being Tutankhamen's children," says Connolly.

Tutankhamen's tomb containing the mummified bodies of the children and the pharaoh was discovered in 1922 near the ancient Nile city of Luxor by British explorer Howard Carter. The children's bodies have since been stored at Cairo University.

"I studied one of the mummies, the larger one, back in 1979, determined the blood group data from this baby mummy and compared it with my 1969 blood grouping of Tutankhamen. The results confirmed that this larger foetus could indeed be the daughter of Tutankhamen," says Connolly.

"Now we believe that they are twins and they were both his children."

Clearer picture

Connolly, professor in physical anthropology from the University of Liverpool's Department of Human Anatomy and Cell Biology, says it is "a very exciting finding" that paints a more detailed picture of Tutankhamen's life, death and lineage.

Tutankhamen was made pharaoh at the age of nine and ruled for ten years before dying in mysterious circumstances.

Egypt's Supreme Council of Antiquities said last month that DNA tests would be carried out on the remains of the babies to establish if they were the offspring of Tutankhamen and his wife Ankhesenamen, daughter of renowned beauty Nefertiti.